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Jobs are mostly handed down mainly by three prospective clients, whose influence will increase should you chose to aid them, often striking against their rivals in a bid for power. Compared to Tenchu, the jobs are much shorter, but come in much greater variety, with far greater freedom in choosing what path to follow. There's the usual 'kill everyone on the map,' though there could be a specific target for the assassination, and there might even be aid in the form of your patron's followers. Sometimes you'll be making a delivery to a rich merchant, or robbing him. Rescuing someone from a cage, or kidnapping someone who doesn't want to be rescued... there's even something as simple as collecting mushrooms, though not so simple with enemies ready to slice you to ribbons for the sake of a purloined vegetable.
The biggest problem I had with the Tenchu series was the guards and assorted foes were pretty much brain dead. They rarely spotted you even when you were right next to them, and if they did you only needed to wait a while before they would reset back to their mechanical walking pattern. In Shinobido, even the dumbest guard knows enough to call his buddies for aid if he spots an intruder, searching frantically for any sign of a possible assassin, before rushing back to their posts... and staying as a group. Though they're chumps compared to the bandits who are constantly glancing around, the kunoichi that leap tall buildings in a single bound, the ninja who strike like lightning at the first sign of trouble, and the samurai with their heightened senses and sharp steel.
If you're spotted, you better run
You can run though, racing through the night and bounding across rooftops, thanks mainly to the dash button that makes Goh a bit harder to control at the expense of moving as swift as the wind and increasing his normal jump to a great leap. Just don't crash into anything, which will not only leave you stunned for a moment, but whose sound will also alert the proper authorities. You can even dash right into a stealth kill on a retreating foe, but don't expect harder enemies to fall for it. By contrast, crouching low will keep you slow and steady, allowing you to move without a sound, slipping down ledges and moving through shallow streams without alerting your prey.
Searching eyes fade in on the top of the screen when an enemy is near, giving you a vague idea of their relative distance and current emotional state, though expect to have to do some careful reconnoitering to pinpoint their exact location. They begin relaxed and probably bored peering into the darkness for hours on end, but the slightest sound or fleeting glimpse will draw their attention, while the sight of an intruder will drive them into a rage. These targets that are easy to keep sight of with the lock-on, which is also essential those times when stealth fails and you'll need to take them down in a quick and dirty fashion. Then you can dish out some simple combos, lay into them with dash or jump attacks, or hurl foes high into the air, slicing them up on the way down.
Shinobido's significant flaw, outside of some unremarkable visuals, is there are only about a dozen locations in the entire game, and some of those are seen only very rarely. In the beginning, the randomly generated missions will only use about three or four of them, which could have gotten boring quick if not for the mission variety and the clever nature of its advanced AI. Even when you're doing a mission you've done before on a level you've seen a half dozen times before, there's almost always a surprise waiting. For instance, I dared a simple assassination mission with the guards seemingly in the same positions as before. Two fell on my blade before there was a single sign of my presence, allowing me to confidently rush around a corner...only to come face to face with an enormous black bear. A very pissed off, enormous black bear. I ran. The guards didn't, and the result was pure pandemonium as the air was filled with the screams and the roaring of a beast whose claws made their swords seem like splinters. The bear ended up doing most of the work, but I got paid either way.
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